Deadly Garage Dispute Shocks Toulouse: Investigation Unravels Workplace Tragedy

According to the newspaper La dépêche, the autopsy of the victim, aged 56, must determine whether the death was caused by a blow during the dispute or by a health problem. The suspect, a 54-year-old man of Moroccan origin, has been taken into custody.

The incident occurred around noon within the garage premises. For an as yet undetermined reason, a dispute broke out between the manager and the maintenance worker. According to the initial findings of the investigation, the verbal exchange quickly degenerated into a scuffle. The maintenance worker is said to have struck the garage owner "with an object", possibly a pole, at the back of the neck. The Toulouse public prosecutor’s office, while describing the altercation as "particularly violent", remains cautious, indicating that the suspect would not have been "the most virulent in the story".

Taken care of by the emergency services, the fifty-year-old was taken to the hospital, but his condition quickly deteriorated and his death was recorded around 2 pm. Two hours later, the suspect, an Italian national of Moroccan origin with no criminal record, was arrested by the gendarmes.

The investigation, opened for "violence with a weapon resulting in death without intent to give it", is now suspended pending the results of the autopsy, scheduled for this Thursday morning. The Toulouse public prosecutor’s office expressed doubts about the direct causal link between the blow and the death. "Certain elements make us doubt it," the magistrate specified, not ruling out the hypothesis of a natural death. The conclusions of the forensic physician will therefore be decisive for the future orientation of the procedure.